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Oh,  OK,  I will try that method.  BTW,  how much free movement shoulf be on the shafts?  I can most definitely move the clutch side (wheel)  shaft an inch or so side to side without movement in the wheel but also the variator shaft,  which is strange,  as I would have thought,  there should be absolutely no slack,  whatsoever...  Thanks!!

Dear all, finally I have gone round to replace the belt and the rollers, upon disassembly I have discovered, both the belt and the rollers are still OK, actually the belt I have measured in-situ completely wrong, and it is barely worn. Anyway, I have cleaned everything, sanded the clutch pads and the bell, cleaned the variator housing, ramps, replaced the rollers, put on the new (Xciting 250i spec) Mitsuboshi belt I have bought, everything is nice and cleaned. The clutch was catching on, chattering away and spinning the wheel ever so slightly before, but now this constant horrible chatter is coming from the variator side at idle completely overshadowing the mellow clutch chatter (that is still there). Also once the engine spins down from acceleration, the chatter gets rather loud for a second it to settle to this constant machine-gun fire mode. What did I do wrong?? Followed everything by the book, put the weights in the correct way, torqued everything to spec, even have taken the shebang apart three times since, trying to make sure, everything is spotless, etc. The belt is spinning the right direction.

I have made a video, sorry it being lousy, but my trouble is clearly audible, the chatter actually consists of three different layers, one is the (now) faint clutch chatter, some metallic noise and the loud chatter.



Any ideas?

Thanks folks!

Gab

  Changing the oil is a good way to stiffen up the fork ,  7.5 oil is from the factory ,  I put in # 10 , if you want to go stiffer go to # 15 oil,

Topping up the oil somewhat wouldn't achieve the same thing?  Or would I blow the seal? I guess a small amount should be sufficient 1oz or so...

Get used to the "clunk" because two DT300I of the same year (2013) do exactly the same thing. No harm seems to happen from clunking over bumps. I only suspect what it might be. I am not curious enough to disassemble everything to find it!

Oh no, I was hoping this is just the bike being worn, or the oil broke down or something... Anyway, I will not tackle this thing now for sure, I had enough of the repairs for the time being (although there is a whole list of things to still do, belt replacement, valves, idle valve, etc etc)

First three are over-engineering. Last one is simplest.

Thank you Karl... It took me three long hours to extract the race and another 20 minutes, to even out any ramps in the steering tube caused by the screwdriver digging in. If I would have had a welder and I would have known, what on earth I'm doing, I most definitely would have tried that method first. Also if one welds properly, the bead holds on, and indeed that gives you a shoulder to hammer away on

Anyway, the most important thing is, that the bike handles just so nicely, even sometimes too nicely, as it "falls" into corners (I guess not overly so, as the fork is not moving sideways, when the front wheel is test-held, does not judder at any speed and the 'hit the end of the bar with palm' method does not produce any unwanted vibrations either).

The only issue remaining in the front section is a clunk, when I hit bumps, I hoped, the steering bearing replacement will get rid of that, well, it did not do that completely. What I mean it is like heaving little suspension travel, and I hear-feel the road surface issues just a tad too much. At some point I will try to replace the fork fluids, but I'll leave the front be for now. BTW, does anybody know the correct amount of the fluid? I do not have a fork seal leak, but if the clunk is caused by little oil (suspension looks very soft to me, but mind you, I had an 80s touring-sports Honda before, which had stiff springs and large wheels), I might not get to far with measuring, how much oil comes out of there.

Thank you!

OK, job done and dusted and not a busted knuckle in sight. I'm just wondering, what waits to happen, job went so easy. Anyway, there were two things, that hold me up, one was the bottom race the other the installation of the stem race.

I have read the same goldwing docs, the hooked spanner and the modified large washer too, none of them worked for the bottom, there was no clearance whatsoever, so nothing to hook up things to. I cut the race diagonally with a diamond disc on a dremel, but I could not split it, as there was not enough space to cut it deep enough. So I ended up cutting channels on the top of the race left and right and modified an old screwdriver to have a very fine tip and a wedge. Hammered away at the two slits and once the screwdriver digged in, I was trying to hit the body of it, using the bottom of the tube as leverage. Needles to say, it didn't budge, so I heated up the tube with a torch locally, that finally helped. Once I got the race moving a bit, it was a lot easier to carry on, as now I had a slit all around, once I've ran out of the space on the screwdriver wedge I could just about hook in a bent threaded rod, that was filed down really narrow at the bottom. Another 20 minutes later the race popped away, the merriest sound ever - hearing the bloody thing ricocheting off the garage floor.

The stem race was easy enough to get rid of, I cut it with a diamond disc and split with a chisel, put the stem in the freezer for overnight and heated the new race up before putting it on. For some reason that was not enough as it was very tight and I kept hammering more and more desperately away on the bottom of the fork (it inverted and put in a vice, old race against the new).  Again heat helped, I torched the bearing race, this time nice and proper and finally I managed to seat it tight.  I stumbled once more, when I put the fork legs in when the top of the triple was already tightened down, fortunately I realised my mistake a bit later on, as the wheel axle was poking the wrong direction, e.g. 2-3 centimeters away from the opening of the other fork leg, SO I took that bit apart and set the legs with the axle screwed in as a guide.

Anyway, long story short the bike handles like a dream, I've got so used to this heavy-heavy steering the bike falls in the curves a little too fast I started to be happy again, so guess what, I have a coolant leak. How on earth? Anyway, I will investigate, that will be nothing compared to the steam bearing replacement...

I strongly recommend getting a torque wrench.

I've had good luck with this one, and it's not much money: https://www.amazon.com/TEKTON-24330-8-Inch-ft-lb-13-6-108-5/dp/B00FMPKAD0/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1521933214&sr=8-4&keywords=torque+wrench+3%2F8

I also occasionally need to use a lighter 1/4 drive wrench, and rarely a 1/2 for high torque nuts. But that one is good for most applications.

I've learned to be paranoid using them; I've missed clicks before. Before you tighten something down, click it a bunch of times in the middle of its range on a high torque nut (that won't turn). I feel safer creeping up on most values... but not so slowly that it won't turn before clicking.

Yes,  I'm anal about things like that too,  the manual is full of values and I just keep on guessing.  I had rented one before and it was a godsend to know,  I'm doing things as the engineers intended,  no losening bolts or stripped threads.